Do Me No Harm Read online

  Table of Contents

  About the author/Also by Julie Corbin

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  About the author

  Julie Corbin has three children and lives in Sussex with her husband. DO ME NO HARM is her third novel.

  Also by Julie Corbin

  TELL ME NO SECRETS

  WHERE THE TRUTH LIES

  DO ME NO HARM

  Julie Corbin

  www.hodder.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain in 2012 by Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © Julie Corbin 2012

  The right of Julie Corbin to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978 1 848 94213 4

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.hodder.co.uk

  For Bruce

  Special thank you to: Inspector Paul Matthews of Lothian and Borders Police and Mr David J Steedman, A & E Consultant at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh for patiently answering all of my questions and for helping me to bring the plot into focus; Jasmine Saunders for putting me right about prescriptions; Paula Healy for her detailed input on the Irish strand of the story, and Susannah Waters at the University of Sussex for her inspiring lessons and forensic examination of writing techniques.

  Special thanks also goes to the team at Hodder, most especially my editor Isobel Akenhead whose advice and enthusiasm is invaluable to me. And to my agent Euan Thorneycroft who continues to be a great sounding board and whose support I very much appreciate.

  Finally, as ever, big thank you to my writing friends and my family for coming on the journey with me.

  ‘The physician must know the present, and foretell the future and have two special objects in view with regard to disease, namely, to do good or to do no harm.’

  Hippocrates, Epidemics

  1

  ‘Are you his next of kin?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, elbows and shoulders jostling me as a group of four men push into the queue behind me. ‘I had a phone call from one of his friends to say he’d collapsed and was being brought here in an ambulance.’

  ‘And your name is?’

  ‘Olivia Somers.’ More jostling. I hold my ground and grip the edges of the counter, leaning in towards her. ‘I’m his mother. I’m also a doctor. And I want to see my son.’ I let each statement roll into the next, then realise I’m sounding threatening. That won’t help. The receptionist’s face is tightening into an expression of practised tolerance, so I take a deep breath and make an effort to slow myself down. More space would make this easier and I step back, straight on to the foot of the man behind me. I say a quick sorry, feel him yield just a little, and stare back at the receptionist. ‘Can I see my son, please?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Her attention focuses on the computer screen. ‘I just need to take a few details first.’

  ‘But is he okay? Is he conscious?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t have that information.’

  ‘I know that you’re only doing your job, but can we please just—’

  She eyeballs me over the top of her glasses. It’s a look that says, we’re doing this my way, so I grit my teeth and patiently tell her everything she wants to know – vaccinations, current medication, name of GP, etc. She keys my answers straight on to the computer and that’s just as well because my hands are shaking too much for me to fill out any forms.

  Three minutes and a dozen questions later, my cooperation pays off and she lifts the phone. ‘Robbie Somers’s mum is here. Yes. Mm. Fine.’ She stands up and without looking at me says, ‘This way.’

  I grab my bag and follow her. It’s Saturday evening, the pubs are shut and the Accident and Emergency waiting area is crammed full of the after-hours crowd. There’s a potent aroma of blood, sweat and alcohol mingling with the fresher smell of disinfectant. Those who haven’t been able to find an empty chair are pacing up and down holding their injury close, or, in the case of one man, a bloodied sweatshirt up to the cut on the side of his face. The whole room simmers with discordant energy and I know it’s only a matter of time before the air heats up and people start to get stroppy. Being in pain, waiting too long, tired, drunk, worried – it’s not a great mix.

  The receptionist is wearing chunky plastic shoes, bulbous at the toes. They give an extra spring to her step and she moves with pace across the room. I’m wearing three-inch heels and a knee-length dress that’s tight at the hem, so I’m forced to trot along behind her in staccato steps as we wend our way between the wounded and their relatives towards a set of double doors.

  She pushes through the doors and into the treatment area. I trained in this hospital, but that was over twenty years ago and since then it has relocated from the rambling Victorian buildings in central Edinburgh to a purpose-built facility southeast of the City. I glance around me, registering the signs on the doors as we pass: Toilets, Relatives’ Room and several doors marked Staff Only. Trolleys line the wall space in between the doors, half of them taken up with people who look in need of a more comfortable place to lie.

  Ahead of us, over a dozen treatment bays branch out from a central island. All the bays have curtains pulled across, apart from one, where an elderly man is propped up on the trolley, his bony hands gripping the cot sides and an oxygen mask over his face. Nurses are bustling in and out of the bays giving reassurance and carrying out procedures – ‘try not to scratch’, ‘tip your head the other way’, ‘it’ll only hurt for a second’ and then, ‘oh dear, never mind’, as vomit splashes on to the floor and a sour, acidic smell permeates the room.

  I look along the floor beneath the curtains searching for signs of Robbie, his jacket or his shoes, anything that identifies him. I see other people’s bags and heaps of discarded clothing and legs from the knee down, but nothing to let me know Robbie is here.

  ‘Wait a second,’ the receptionist tells me, bringing us both to a halt next to the nurses’ station. ‘I’ll get one of the doctors to come and speak to you.’

  I expect her to pop her head behind a curtain but she doesn’t; she goes into a room at the end. There’s a sign on one of the double doors that says Resuscitation.

  Sweet Jesus. Panic flashes through me like lightning. My heart starts to race and my legs collapse inwards so that my knees knock together. I press one hand over my mouth and hold on to the counter with the other. It takes almost a minute for the feeling to pass, and as soon a
s it does, I start to talk myself round. Robbie is seventeen years old. He’s young; he’s healthy; he’s strong. And he’s in the right place. God forbid that his heart has stopped, but if it has, there’s all the necessary expertise and equipment here to deal with it. I need to keep calm and I need to ring Phil.

  Keeping an eye on the Resusc room, I move into a nearby cupboard and stand next to a stack of crutches and wheelchairs, rummaging around in my bag for my mobile, stopping short at emptying the whole lot out on to the floor when I remember I zipped it up in the side compartment. I’ve managed to avoid speaking to Phil for over a month now and, as immature as it sounds, I’d be more than happy never to speak to him again. But we were married for almost seventeen years and he’s the father of both my children, so I have to find a way to communicate with him without it degenerating into our usual slanging match. This is an emergency. Be an adult, Olivia, I tell myself. Just do it.

  I press the numbers and his phone starts to ring, five times, and then the answering service clicks in. ‘Phil, it’s me. Please call me as soon as you get this message.’

  I end the call, but before my mobile’s even back in my bag, I’m mentally kicking myself. Bugger. I’m going to have to ring him again. He’ll ignore my last message because he’ll think I’m calling for myself. When he first left me, I went through a phase of phoning him late at night – two or three large gin and tonics, the children in bed and I couldn’t help myself. At first he picked up the phone, but after a couple of times of telling me I needed to ‘move on’ and accept that our relationship had ‘come to a natural end’, he just let me ramble into the answering machine. Each and every time I ended up feeling humiliated and sore as if I’d taken a penknife to an open wound. I’m past that stage now, but because the divorce papers only came through yesterday, he’ll think I’ve slid back down there again.

  I pace around in a small circle, then have another go. ‘It’s me again, Phil. I should have said that it’s not about me. Robbie’s in the infirmary. He collapsed up town. I’m not sure but I think they might have been drinking. I don’t know any more yet. I’m waiting for the doctor to come and talk to me.’

  I drop the phone back into my bag and breathe deeply. Right. That’s that done. At least he can’t accuse me of withholding information about the children. I come out of the supplies cupboard, side-stepping an elderly woman who’s pushing a Zimmer frame and being walked towards the exit by a nurse. Someone is crying loudly behind the nearest set of curtains and a young voice shouts, ‘You shouldn’t have done that!’ followed by a woman’s soothing tones.

  I stare at the windowless doors to the Resusc room, willing them to open. What’s happening in there? Surely the receptionist should have come out ages ago? I contemplate just walking in on them, but the truth is I’m afraid to. Familiar as I am with illness and injury and the workings of a hospital, I don’t want to see Robbie on the patient end of a defibrillator and witness the horror of him being treated for . . . for what? Truth is I don’t really know what’s happened to him. His friend Mark Campbell called me less than an hour ago. I was having dinner in a restaurant and the background noise from both his end and mine drowned out most of what he said. All I’d been able to work out was that Robbie had collapsed outside one of the pubs on the Royal Mile. Emily Jones, a friend of theirs, helped with first aid until the ambulance arrived. I told Mark I’d meet him at the hospital, said a rushed goodbye to my date and left the restaurant immediately. All the way here in the taxi I im-agined that Robbie had drunk too much and was being brought to the infirmary to have his stomach pumped. But now I’m not so sure. The amount of time it’s taking and the fact that he is in the Resusc room rather than one of the treatment bays is flooding me with increasing anxiety. And where is Mark? He can’t be in the room with Robbie. He must be waiting around here somewhere.

  ‘Please!’ The old man has pulled his mask to one side and is waving at me, his voice croaky and weak. ‘I need a bottle.’

  ‘You have a catheter in, Mr Darcy,’ a nurse calls across from the central station. She is balancing several files over one arm and pushing a trolley laden with sterile dressing packs ahead of her. ‘Try to relax.’ She looks towards me and smiles. ‘Bless him. He’s waiting for a bed upstairs but nothing’s available yet.’

  She’s the first nurse who’s been willing to catch my eye and I seize the chance to talk to her. ‘My son is in Resusc and the receptionist has gone in there to get a doctor but that was at least five minutes ago and she hasn’t come out yet.’

  ‘There’s another door out of that room. Takes you round the outside of this area.’

  ‘I see. Sorry.’ I follow her a few steps along the corridor. ‘You wouldn’t happen to know how my son is?’

  ‘Robbie Somers?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Dr Walker will be with you in a mo. They’re just sorting him out.’

  ‘So he’s all right?’

  ‘Getting there.’

  ‘Thank God.’ For the first time since the phone call, the knot inside me loosens. ‘His friend accompanied him in the ambulance. Do you know where he is?’

  ‘He was feeling sick and went outside for some air. I think both boys might have had a bit too much to drink.’ She widens her eyes. ‘And the rest.’

  My gut tightens again. ‘And the rest?’

  ‘Dr Walker will give you the details.’ She steers me ahead of her. ‘Robbie’s a lucky boy. It’s been touch and go.’ She opens the door signed Relatives’ Room and ushers me inside. ‘Doctor shouldn’t be a minute. Make yourself a coffee if you’d like one.’

  I sit down on one of the seats, red imitation leather squeaking a protest underneath me. The room is painted an off-white colour with bland prints at regular intervals breaking up the expanse of wall. There’s a fridge in the corner, a kettle and half a dozen mugs on a tray next to it. A low coffee table has two piles of National Geographic magazines stacked neatly in the centre. The carpet is a busy pattern of blue-, green- and cream-linked chains and I stare at it while I think about what the nurse was implying when she said ‘and the rest’. It doesn’t take me long to surmise that there’s only one thing she can mean – drugs. Robbie’s collapsed because he’s been taking drugs.

  The realisation sends my thoughts sparking off in all directions. I see words, neon-bright – ecstasy, cocaine, GHB and heroin; words loaded with risk and significance. All teenagers experiment, but surely Robbie hasn’t been foolish enough to take drugs that would cause him to fall unconscious? Especially when, as recently as last month, we talked about drugs. There was a programme on television about substance abuse and it led us to have what I thought was an honest conversation about the dangers. He assured me he wasn’t interested in taking drugs. Yes, he’d smoked marijuana a couple of times, and once he’d taken ecstasy at a party but he hadn’t liked it much; as for hard drugs – they were ‘for losers’. I remember being absolutely sure he was telling me the truth. And perhaps he was. It could be that recently something has happened to change his mind. I can’t think of anything specific, but then if he’s fallen out with one of his friends or been knocked back by a girl he likes, he’s not necessarily going to share that with me.

  ‘Right you are then.’ The same nurse is back and she has Robbie’s friend Mark Campbell with her. ‘You two wait in here together. I’ll find out how much longer the doctor’s going to be.’

  Mark looks terrified. He’s breathing heavily, his dark eyes are bleak and his hands are pulling at the hem of his T-shirt. His mum is my best friend and I’ve known him since he was born. I stand up to give him a hug, then notice that the reason his T-shirt is bothering him so much is because there’s a large bloodstain across the front of it.

  ‘Is that . . . ?’ The crème brûlée I had for dessert curdles in my stomach. ‘Is that Robbie’s blood?’

  Mark’s body sways from side to side. ‘I’m sorry, Liv. Robbie banged his head when he hit the kerb.’ His voice breaks and he coughs into his hand.
‘He fell down so quickly I didn’t have time to catch him.’

  ‘Sweetheart.’ I hold his upper arms, trying to reassure him while at the same time keeping myself away from the stain. ‘You did everything you could. I know you did.’

  ‘I don’t get it. I don’t get why he collapsed.’

  ‘Sit down here.’ I nudge him backwards into a seat, then sit down opposite him and take both his hands. Ordinarily the sight of blood doesn’t faze me, but this is Robbie’s blood and there’s so much of it and what if the head injury is serious? Once again, panic closes in on me and I talk myself round, remind myself that liquid spreads. It always looks like more than it actually is. And as for the head injury – Robbie banged his head a couple of years ago when we were skiing. He was out cold for four minutes and still made a full recovery. ‘Tell me what happened, Mark,’ I say, keeping my voice steady. ‘From the beginning. Take your time.’

  ‘After hockey practice, we decided to go up town.’

  ‘Just you and Robbie?’

  ‘No.’ He shakes his head. ‘We went with the usual crowd. There were about ten of us. We were just going to have a couple of drinks then get the bus back home.’

  ‘But you ended up drinking a lot more than that?’

  ‘No.’ He shakes his head again, this time emphatically. ‘We only had two. It’s too expensive to drink in pubs.’

  ‘Did you drink before you left the hockey club then?’

  ‘Just . . . well . . .’ He hesitates. ‘Just one vodka. It wasn’t much.’

  ‘You know you can tell me the truth.’

  His face falls into his shoes.

  ‘Mark.’ I lean in closer towards him. His shock of blue-black hair, the colour of old-fashioned ink, is covering both his eyes, and I have to bend my head to see up into his face. ‘I won’t deny that I’m disappointed you lied to me about where you were going this evening. And I’ve already worked out that the two of you must have fake IDs, otherwise you couldn’t have been served. But I’m not interested in blaming you for either of these two things. The truth is important because it might affect the treatment Robbie’s given.’